


A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:/Its loveliness increases; it will never/Pass into nothingness

by Shadowmatic



Series: Pride Month 2020 [1]
Category: Hyperion Cantos - Dan Simmons
Genre: F/F, F/M, Mentions of the Bible, Old Earth, Takes Place After the Events of Canon, Trans Female Character, Trans Raul Endymion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24515209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowmatic/pseuds/Shadowmatic
Summary: Raul chooses again.
Relationships: Aenea | The One Who Teaches/Raul Endymion
Series: Pride Month 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771609





	A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:/Its loveliness increases; it will never/Pass into nothingness

I had not let myself think back to my childhood in a very long time. When I had been in the Schrödinger’s Box, preserving my memory of Aenea had been the most important thing, and even before that I had not much to cause to think of that time of my life. 

However, several nights after our arrival on Old Earth, I sat staring into the fire and thought about the figures of my childhood. Aenea had gone down to the nearby river, the Mississippi if A. Bettik was to believed, and given who he was, it was hard not to believe him. 

There had been many colourful people in our little wandering caravan, but the one I thought of then was a woman by the name of Roberta Talty. I remembered my grandmother telling me that she had been born a man, but that she was a woman. I don’t know why I thought of that then, when it had been years since I had seen her. 

Another memory rose into my mind. I had spent several nights after that thinking about my own gender, and I had discovered that I was also a girl, a woman. I had made the choice never to think about it then and it was likely that I would have made the same choice on the edge of the Mississippi, a lifetime and thousands of klicks removed from my childhood, if Aenea had not chosen that moment to return from the river’s edge. 

She appeared to my mind still to be a vision, a thing unreal, as she walked into the circle of light thrown by our crackling fire, and she smiled as she caught my eye. 

“What were you thinking about?” She asked, skirting the fire and sitting beside me. 

“I was thinking about how beautiful you are.” I said, catching up her hand, and pressing a kiss to each of her knuckles in turn. She laughed. 

“Before that. You seemed very lost in thought.” I thought about telling her, about what she might say, and then I thought about what she _had_ said. About her ‘Sermon on the Mount’. _Choose again_. And I chose. 

“I was thinking about my childhood, and about a woman I knew, named Roberta Talty.” I started. She squeezed my hand gently, encouragingly, and suddenly I couldn’t remember why I was worried. Aenea had never been anything but kind to people, no matter how they identified. 

She stayed silent as I spoke, telling her more than I had intended about my childhood, but eventually I trailed off. 

“And...” I said hesitantly. “I think. I think. You said, choose again. And I made a choice years ago, but I think I need to choose again. Choose differently.” 

“And what choice is that?” Even though it had yet to happen for her, she didn’t seem surprised by my words. 

“Whether or not I was going to act on the fact that I’m a woman.” I said. She squeezed my hand. “I know there’s not much by way of medical science here, so I can’t change things, but I think I’d rather be a woman.”

“Okay.” Aenea said, shifting so that she was sitting sideways on the log. I turned to face her. “You’re still Raul, if that’s what you would like to be called, and I still love you.”

She pulled me down to her and we kissed. We kissed for a while, and I revelled in the fact that she was there, alive, and that we ha more time. 

“I think,” I said, slightly breathlessly, when she pulled back, laughing, “that I would still like to be called Raul.” She beamed at me, and my heart hurt with happiness. 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried my best to emulate Simmons’ style. I don’t write in first person very often either, please forgive my mistakes. 
> 
> Prompt: vision (day one of @cutequeerpositivity on Tumblr’s Pride Month prompt list)
> 
> Title is from Endymion: A Poetic Romance by John Keats
> 
> I tagged this with both f/f and f/m because there is a transition in the relationship, even though it is only one relationship. Let me know if I should tag this with anything else.


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